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We row down the lake, lazily and slowly, past rocky bays and sharp-nosed promontories, and low points pinnacled with firs. The hills change as we row. At the head of the lake they are rugged and high, with black crags on them far away, but lower down the lake they are not so rough. There are fewer rocks and more heather, and the hills are gentler and less mountainous, until at last at the foot of the lake they open into a broad flat valley, where the river runs to the sea. A little more than half way down there is an island that we can see, a green dot in the distance, from our farmhouse windows, and here we have our tea.
We run the boat carefully aground in a pebbly inlet at one end of the island. We take the baskets ash.o.r.e, and camp in the shadow of a little group of pines. There is no need to tell you what a picnic tea is like. You know quite well how jolly it is, and how the bun-loaf tastes better than the finest cake, and the sandwiches disappear as if by magic, and the tea seems to have vanished almost as soon as the cork is pulled from the bottle.
As soon as tea is over we prowl over the rockinesses of the little island, and creep among the hazels and pines and tiny oaks and undergrowth. Do you know trees never look so beautiful as when you get peeps of blue water between their fluttering leaves?
When we have picked our way through to the other end, we climb upon a high rock with a flat top to it, and heather growing in its crevices; and here we lie, torpid after our tea, and pretend that we are viking-folk from the north who have forced our way here by land and sea, and are looking for the first time upon a lake that no one knew before us. The Imp tells us a story of how he fought with a red-haired warrior, and how they both fell backwards into the sea, and how he killed the other man dead, and then came home to change his wet clothes, long, long ago in the white north. And the Elf, not to be beaten, has her story, too, how she rode on a dragon one night and saw the lake--this very lake--far away beneath her, like a shining shield with a blue island boss in the middle of it. And how the fiery dragon flapped down so that she could pick a sc.r.a.p of heather from the island, and how here was the very heather that she picked. And then I tell them stories, too, of the old times, when the great fires were lit on the crests of the hills, as warning signals to people far away. And so the time slips away, and we suddenly find that we are ready to row on again to have just one peep at the river.
All round the low end of the lake there are tall reeds growing and bulrushes, and there is soft marshy ground that make damp islets among the reeds. As we row down we are nearly sure to see one or two big white birds with proud necks swimming slowly along the reeds. Sometimes we have seen them rise into the air with a great whirring of wings and splashing of water, and then sink again on the surface of the lake, beating up a long mane of foam as they fall. These are the swans, and on one of the islets in the reeds they have a nest; more than once, when I have been here earlier in the year, I have seen the mother swan sitting white and stately on her home, and then the little grey cygnets break out of the eggs and swim with their parents, looking so fluffy and dirty and odd that the Imp and Elf can hardly believe that some day they will turn out to be tall swans like the big white birds they love, who swim through the water like the ships of a fairy queen.
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The river flows away out of the lake through a broad opening in the reeds. We row in there, and then let ourselves drift, just guiding the boat with gentle strokes of the oar, until we leave the reeds behind us, and move on the running river between green banks, thick with bush and rough with rocks. Here on the banks we sometimes see the remains of a dead fish half pulled to pieces.
We know what that means, "The otter," says the Imp, and we stare about with eyes wider than before, doing our best to imagine in very stir in the bushes or under the banks that we can see his dark body, like a beaver, for he can swim in the water and dive like a fish, and run along the bank as well. But we have never seen him, though we know that he is there. And otters are growing fewer and fewer. Every year men and women with dogs come to hunt them and kill them. Some day there will be no otters left at all.
We wait in the river till the evening, and then set out to row the long way back again. As we row up the river into the lake again we can see the trout rising in big circles of ripples, and hear the peewits screaming on the marshland. It is odd how we seem to notice sounds at evening that we should not at other times. Everything seems so quiet that little noises seem to matter. When we hear the frogs croaking we do not think how loud they are, but only how silent is everything-else. It is evening now, when we row round the promontory at the low end of the lake, and already we are wondering if we shall get home before the owls begin to call. Long ago the Imp and the Elf should have been asleep in bed.
The lake is very still, and the sky is less brilliant than it was. The sun has dropped below the hills, and their outlines are clear against the rose of the sunset. The Imp and the Elf say nothing, but listen for the night noises, and watch the sky working its miracles in colour. This evening is a new dream world for them, and they are wondering whether the water people are awake or asleep. "There never is a time when everything goes to bed, is there?" says the Elf, sleepily, as we lift her out of the boat. And as the two of them go off to bed, very happy and very, very tired, we can hear the long kr-r-r-r-r-r of the nightjar in the pinewoods up the hills, and below us in the woods at the head of the lake two owls are answering each other.
V
OUR OWN AQUARIUM
It is quite a long time since the Imp and the Elf first started a guest-house for the water people. One day, when the Elf was very small, and I was showing her pictures in a book, and telling her about the sticklebacks, and the minnows, and the loaches, and the caddisworms, and all the rest of them, she sat silent for a long time, and then said suddenly, "I want to ask him," and wriggled down from my knee and went off to find the Imp. Presently they came back together. "We want to have some caddises for our own,"
they said, and I understood that the Elf had thought it only fair to consult the Imp before asking me about them for herself.
That very day we began to plan the guest-house. At first it was to be no more than a jam pot, with mud in the bottom of it for the caddises. Then we thought that perhaps even a caddis would like a house a little bigger than a jam pot, or even than a big marmalade jar. Even caddises crawl. The next bigger thing to one of the big marmalade jars that they have in the nursery is a basin. And basins are no use at all. They tip over if you lean on their edges to look at anything that is crawling about inside.
There was nothing for it but to plan something new. And, if we were to have something made on purpose, if we were to have a really big home for caddises, there was no reason why we should not plan it bigger still and be able to keep minnows in it, or goldfish, or even a smallish eel.
So we spent a splendid afternoon planning the guest-house, and next morning walked over the fields to the village with a lot of scribblings in our hands. The scribbles were to explain what sort of a guest-house we wanted. We walked straight through the village to the glazier"s shop. A glazier is a man who comes and mends windows when tennis-b.a.l.l.s have gone through them and broken them. This glazier was very nice and kind. He let the Elf and the Imp climb up and sit on his table, while he looked over our scribbles, and then took a big sheet of paper and made a neat drawing himself. He made what he called a plan, and what he called an elevation, and then he drew a real picture of what the guest-house was to be, and put a curly fish with a winking eye swimming about in the middle. This picture he gave to the children, so that they could think about the guest-house while it was being made. He promised that we should have it in a week"s time.
It was a fortnight before it came. That is the way of glaziers who are leisurely but very clever. For though the guest-house was so long in coming, it was splendid when it came. It had four sides made of gla.s.s, with wooden pillars at the corners, painted green. It was like a house whose windows had spread all over the walls. And it was so big that the Imp could easily stand in it with both feet, a good way apart, too. We filled it with water and it did not leak. There was a tube hidden in the bottom of it with a tap at the side, so that we could let the water out and put fresh water in without having to take out the fish. That was important, as we did not want to disturb our guests, and all the water-folk want their water changing from time to time.
We found a fine place for the Aquarium on one of the broad bookshelves in the study, and as soon as we had fixed it there we set about furnishing it and filling it with guests. We covered the bottom with sand, and put some big stones in it with holes in them to make hiding-places for the fish. Then we set off for the duck-pond with three jam pots and two small nets. We did not bother to play with the geese that day or even to look at the donkey. We went straight to the edge of the pond and began pulling some of the green duckweed out on the banks. We put a good deal of it into one of the pots, and then searched through a lot more, looking for those little round flat snails that I told about in the second chapter. We wanted plenty of them, because they keep the aquarium healthy, and the water sweet and fresh. As soon as we had plenty of duckweed and plenty of snails, we went on over the fields to the beck. And here we got half-a-dozen caddisworms and a water-shrimp, and some minnows. We let the shrimp go, because he does not live well except in running water. But the others we carried home with us in the jam pots, which we had to pretend into triumphal carriages. For we were bringing home our first guests.
The Imp and the Elf sat on high chairs in the study till bed-time watching the caddises crawl about on the mud, and the minnows flit in and out among the stones. And before they went to bed they said goodnight, very solemnly, to the water people. For it is always best to be polite, even if the water-people do not understand. And, as the Elf said, "Perhaps they do."
Next morning the carrier stopped on his way from the station with a big can that had come by train from London; and in the dark depths of the can we could see golden flashes. For I had written to town for half-a-dozen golden fish to come and stay with the minnows.
And after that the guest-house was always full. From time to time new guests came, and others went away, let loose again in the duck pond or the stream. Always the guests are changing. Someone sent us a little water-tortoise for a present, and we kept him with us for a little while, and then put him in the pond to see life on his own account. We have had little eels from the stream, and sticklebacks (but these are quarrelsome folk), and tadpoles, and loaches, and carp, who are like greenish goldfish, and long-bodied gudgeon, and silvery roach. Every morning, after breakfast, before setting out walking, the children come into the study and feed the guests with worms, and ants" eggs, and crumbled vermicelli.
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The guest-house is like a little water world where we can see the smaller water-folk living in their own way. It is a beautiful little world, with its clear water, and green weed, with the little fishes swimming under the roots of the weeds, and darting among the crevices of the stones. And it is a little world that is not very difficult to manage. We have to be careful not to overfeed the guests, and yet we must be sure that they have enough to eat. We have to keep the water clear, changing it every other day, pouring fresh water in at the top and running out the old through the tap at the bottom. It is a little world that anyone can manage who loves the water-folk well enough to take plenty of trouble with them.
And now, do you know, we have come to the end. There is such a lot to write about the things that are jolly and wet that the Imp and the Elf say I have missed out half the things that ought to be put in, and I know that I have missed out a very great deal more than that. But if you really care for the water-folk you will find out the best of all the things that cannot be written here by going to the stream side, or the pond side, or the side of the lake and making friends with the water-people for yourself.